June 29, 2009 Monday

Bolinas	Channel
8:00 am to 10:30 am	Consistent 3' to 4', sets head high
Mid outgoing tide	Slight onshore breeze
Sunny and warm, fog on the horizon	Fun session

What a difference the weather makes. Today was ideal: warm, sunny and great waves. Last Friday it was miserable. June gloom, overcast, misting, strong south wind, choppy surface, and white caps that obliterated the impact of a decent three-foot swell. As I turned the corner onto Brighton Ave in Bolinas I saw Cathy from the Russian River area drive by in her pick up truck, and then Mary drove by, shortly followed by Marty. It was 8:00 am and they were leaving. I didn’t bother going out. That afternoon a high-pressure heat wave moved in. Saturday and Sunday were hot and this morning the heat was subsiding but it was still warm with a lifting fog, sun breaking through high clouds and ten surfers out at the Channel.

Marty, Doug, Jim and Hans were out there. From the overlook I saw a decent peak mid-Channel with rights peeling continuously for a long ways towards Seadrift and the lefts were closing out due to shallow water. The path of the outflowing water had shifted. It now swung north just beyond the Groin Pole forming an island of sand straight out from the mouth of the lagoon. The peak was a hundred yards out from there. Lines of water that stretch across the Channel marched in. The sandbar shaped the good right waves, causing them to break consistently at one point and peel along the contour of the beach to Seadrift. The NOAA buoys reported 58-degree water, which is warm for Bolinas, an eight-foot north wind swell combined with a 2.4-foot south swell, remnants from a gale off the coast of Chile. Despite ten surfers already there, I decided join them.

On the beach I met Cathy from the Russian River area who introduced me to her husband. They were camping in Bodega Bay and decided to check out Bolinas this morning. Out in the water I asked Marty about his trip to Kauai where he connected with some great surf and then stepped on a bed of sea urchins whose spines kept him out of the water for a few days. I asked Jim about his gig last Friday. Jim is a jazz guitarist and lands jobs playing at hotels in the wine country. Due to the recession the hotels are down and so are the gigs, but this one went well, standing room only. I asked Professor Steve how his book project was coming. He is co-authoring a study on Hamlet. Steve said he was building the index, which means the initial draft is done.

After taking a couple of waves, one left and one right, I implored the same strategy I used three weeks ago here when the rights were firing. The approaching swells were flat and would jump up when the hit the shallow sandbar. I would sit way outside, position myself at the apex of the peak, wait for the bigger set waves, paddle hard, get into the waves early, set high in the wave and be in position to hum down the curls when the waves jumped up. The strategy worked and I connected with numerous long rides. I would jump up, swing right, glide through the initial section, cut back into the breaking part of the wave, swing right again as the wave jumped up into a steep curl and shoot through a second and sometimes a third section. The larger waves looked like they would close out as they approached. On one I took off late thinking I wouldn’t make it but I would give it a try. I cut right, looked down a beautiful head high blue-green wall that was feathering ten yards in front of me, trimmed through the first section, stepped to the middle of the board and sailed down a second section. It was a great ride. After an hour the tide dropped some causing the lefts to break in deeper water, and I applied the same tactics to a few lefts.

The others were getting good rides also. While paddling out, I got a good side view of Professor Steve locked in a four-foot curl, crouching down mid-curl with white water of the fast breaking wave pounding right behind his head. I paddled over the wave while he shot by and watched him travel on for another fifty yards. I caught another good side view of Marty connecting on a long well formed left. Jim, who was also sitting outside with me, caught a few good long ones.

I met David a longboarder in his 50s, on a Stewart black and white board, on the right side of the peak. He got some good rides. After observing one of his long rides I complimented him as he paddled back out. He gushed with excitement about how good it was, how much fun he was having and how today was the best of the last three days. He lives in San Rafael but this week he and his family were renting a house at Seadrift.

“Stacation,” I said to him. “That’s what the locals call what you are doing. Vacationing close to home. The local businesses are doing well here in Bolinas and Stinson because people are taking local vacations.”

“Wish I could say the same,” he replied. “My business is tanking.”

“What do you do?”

“I own four radio stations in the Midwest and like newspapers, revenues are down.” Meanwhile he has moved his family back here and commutes to Chicago. The good waves were definitely getting his mind off his economic woes.

I also met Jeff a young shortboarder from Sebastopol. He was an expert surfer connecting on both lefts and rights. His local break is Salmon Creek and sometimes Dillon Beach. He was here due to the strong winds up north.

“The water must be five degrees warmer here,” he said.

“That’s because of the lagoon,” I said. “It’s shallow, the sun heats up the water and the low tide then pours the warm water out here.”

“Marty, this is like surfing at the Seal Beach Power Plant,” I reminded Marty. “Do you remember that?” Marty learned to surf in his high school years at Seal Beach and the south end of Long Beach. The Power Plant used seawater to cool the stream boilers, and they pumped heated water back out into the break. The water was 85 to 90 degrees, bath water that would melt the wax right off of your board.

“Today the stingrays have returned,” Marty replied. “They love the warm water and have taken over. You can’t surf there anymore.”

Bright sunshine, warm water, mellow crowd and good waves made for a great session. In an exchange of emails later on both Professor Steve and I agreed that today was special.